How He Felt
by touched by death
Summary: Spencer gets an offer for him and the team to talk to some troubled teens. He jumps at the offer but it stirs up some pain from his past. Rated M for self harm and sensitive subjects. Could be taken as light slash or just friendship. This will be a two-shot.


If You Knew

 _ **A/N:I don't really like the way this turned out, in fact I hate it. But I'm posting it anyways. Hopefully the next chapter will be better. I'll probably end up rewriting this at some point, but until then read at your own risk.**_

 _ **Disclaimer:I do not own Criminal Minds, I am just borrowing them and will put them back when I am done. I apologize if they are returned with any bruises, cuts, broken bones or missing limbs. Things can sometimes get a bit crazy when I play with them.**_

"I will have to speak to the rest of the team, but I'll be there, personally, for sure."

"Thank you, Doctor, thank you. You don't know what it'll mean to have someone like you talk to them," The woman on the other side of the phone said.

"No, this is really an honor. I'm glad you think me and my team can help. I'll contact you with the others' responses."

Dr. Spencer Reid hung up the phone. He was kinda shocked at the offer he just got. The women on the other line, Sarah Baker, worked at a clinic that offered a support group for people who suffered from addiction and self harm. What sets them apart from other clinics is that they have a program specially catered to teens. Sarah had just asked Reid if him and his team could come and speak at a meeting they were holding. He was excited to help teens in a way that no one had ever helped him, he wanted to make a difference.

There was a knock at the door and Special Agent Derek Morgan stuck his head into the room. He was curious as to why spencer's phone call was taking so long, and why he had to take it in private. He was always curious when it came to Pretty Boy. The look he saw on the kid's face worried him a bit. He looked like he was on the verge of going into shock.

"Reid, you okay?"

Derek's deep voice snapped the doctor out of his thoughts.

"Huh?" He asked.

"I asked if you were okay,"

"Oh, um, yeah. I'm fine," Spencer told him. He glanced around for a second before continuing, " But, I need to talk to you and the rest of the team."

"Well, we're all in here," Derek nodded his head behind him where the others were sitting outside the office. Reid followed him into the other room.

"What's up?" JJ asked from her seat n front of one of the many desks at headquarters.

Spencer glanced down at the cellphone that was still in his hand and looked back up at everyone with a furrow in his brow.

"Uhm, I just got a call from a woman named Sarah Baker," He proceeded to explain the clinic and the program, and the meeting they were wanting them to appear at.

"It sounds great," Hotch said. "I'm just curious as to what made them contact you."

"Uhm uh," Reid started stuttering, worse than usual. He also started to fidget with phone in his hand. " She, uh, s-she read an o-old paper ...I...wrote."

Everyone just kind of looked at him until he excused himself to go call them back and tell them that they were all in.

Rossi said what everyone was thinking, "Is something going on with him?"

They all glanced at Derek, but he didn't notice because he was too looking after his pretty dark toned man shook his head.

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out,"He said and walked off in the direction Spencer did. The rest left him to it, if anyone could do it, he could.

Derek's knuckles softly rapped on the office door before he stuck his head in. Reid was just ending the coversation and mtioned for him to enter. He ended the conversation and turned to his fellow agent.

"Do you need something?" the young genius asked.

"Are you okay?" Derek bluntly asked him. As the younger man opened his mouth to reassure- Lie to - him, Morgan cut him off. " No, I mean are you really okay?"

This time the doctor really stopped to think about. Finally he just shrugged.

"Why is this offer bothering you? You seemed to really like the idea when you were talking out there,"Derek said, pointing his thumb behind him.

"I am," Reid quickly states. "This seems like it'll be a great experience, and another way to help people. You know, besides our job."

"Yeah, I know," was all the other man would wait until the younger man wanted to talk. He would wait as long as the other man needed him to.

Spencer sighed. He sat down on the rolly chair behind the desk and started rolling back and forth. Derek realized he would have to prod the conversation a bit. He could read the slight hesitation in the younger man.

"Was it the paper you wrote? Is there something about it you don't like?"

"I didn't write a paper on it"Reid suddenly said.

Morgan was confused,"But you said out there-"

"It was a personal journal," the doctor cut him off.

The other man thought about that for a minute."Why would your personal journal interest a teenage addiction and self harm program?"

Reid slowly looked up to meet his eyes. He saw the moment it clicked in his mind, watched the thought pass through his eyes. But he said it out loud anyway. He had to say it out loud.

"Because," And his voice was quiet and weak, " I mentioned in my journal how I wished I had help with my teenage self harm."

The words hit Derek like a blow. He suddenly felt light headed, as if blood wasn't flowing through his body properly or he wasn't getting enough oxygen. He slowly sank down in one of the chairs on the other side of the desk, the ones meant for clients. He clasped his hands together and rested his head on them. Once he thought he was somewhat under control again he lifted his head. Morgan and Reid's eyes connected, the latter having been watching the other one's reaction to the news.

"I never knew," Morgan breathed, seemingly unable to make his voice any stronger. But Reid heard him.

"And until recently, I didn't know you were sexually abused as a child," He replied softly. He wasn't trying to be cruel. He was just pointing out that they all had their secret pasts. Morgan just nodded, he understood that.

"Do you want to tell me about it?"

"I was eight when I entered high school. I developed into a very antisocial child.I was excluded because of my age and IQ. They used to call me a freak. I used to point out that amazing people, like Albert Einstein, were genius' they would tell me that he was insane, and I probably was too. Every chance they had to tell me I wasn't right, that there was something wrong with me, they took," Most of this was said mater of factly, until the end. Emotion started to leak into his voice. No emotion in particular just emotion. Anger, frustration, fear, pain.

"My intelligence was a really sore point for me," He continued, back to that mater of fact speaking, "I wrapped it around me like a blanket and used it as my shield. Anytime someone threatened me physically I would throw my intelligence in there face. Then they started to put that down. They called me stupid and, though I knew it wasn't true, the thought wiggled it's way into my mind. But even that didn't seem to have the desired effect. So they started telling me that I was worthless. That nobody would want or need a smart-alec kid genius. And that kinda hit home, ya know? I mean, I may be smart, but I'm young and a lot of things in this world are age restricted." His voice started to catch in his throat, so he paused and took a few shaky breathes.

"You don't have to continue,"Derek tells him.

"No,I'm going to be telling the story at the meeting. You should know all of this," He weakly smiled at the older man, who gave a soft, encouraging smile in return.

"The self harm didn't start until my third year of high school. I was cooking in our kitchen and I got distracted. I started thinking about all the things the other kids said to me, the things they did to hurt and humiliate me. And suddenly this overwhelming feeling came over me. It was almost this unfathomable anger. I was taking something out of the oven and suddenly I felt this blistering pain on my right arm. It wasn't until later, when I was nursing my burn, that I realized the rage was gone. I wasn't focused on my emotions or the bullies. I was just focused on the pain. After that, anytime I felt strong emotions I would burn myself. Somewhere in the midst of the burning, I started cutting and I did both of them untill I graduated from college the first time," Reid finished. It was kinda vauge but he would go into more detail at the meeting.

The two BAU agents sat in silence for a few moments. The younger man was fidgeting with his sleeve and Derek got wanted to see but he didn't want to push the kid too far. Spencer saw the older man staring at his arms and sighed. He pushed up his sleeves and rolled the chair around the desk, closer to the darker man.

"You can't really see the scars because they've faded over the years and I've purposely faded them, but if you look you can see them."

Derek looked down at the pale arms held out before him. The kid was right, they were hard to see. The burn scars were easier to see, but even then if you didn't know what you were looking at you would completely ignore them. That explains why nobody on the team ever knew. Why he never knew. He slowly traced all the scars, touch as light as a feather. He could feel them better than he could see them. The young genius's voice broke the silence once again.

"I find myself thinking about the bullies a lot. I think about where they are now, what they've done with there lives. But mostly I think about what would happen if they knew about my self harm. I'd like to think that if they knew they would stop bullying people. And I can't decide if that makes me feel better or worse about them. Better because they would stop if they saw someone in that much pain, worse because it would take seeing someone in that much pain for them to stop."

The darker man just sat there. This was very uncertain territory for him. He had no clue what to say or do, no idea how to act. What do you do when your best friend, the person you're supposed to know the best, tells you that he used to burn and cut himself? When he tells you that he used to believe that physical pain was a way of coping with emotional pain? He honestly didn't know.

He did the only thing he could think of, offered his support the only way he knew how. He reached his arms out towards the young man in front of him and grabbed him by the shoulders. Before Spencer could even register what was going on he was crushed to a broad chest. He started to melt into the hug slowly, the smell of Derek surrounding him, the send of his heartbeat filling his ears.

After a few moments he was fully relaxed and he was thinking that maybe, just maybe, if he had Derek standing by him he would be able to tell them all what happened to him and what he did. And maybe help someone who did the same thing. He believed that if they only knew that someone understood what they went through,that someone believed in the suffering they went through while getting their scars, that they might feel like opening up some old wounds and lettin them heal. He wanted to be that someone to them.


End file.
